Gunnar Heiberg

Gunnar Heiberg was a Norwegian poet, playwright, journalist and theatre critic. He was born in Christiania (now Oslo) in 1857, as a son of a judge. He was left alone as a child when his parents separated, and he was educated at King Frederick's University. He made his debut as a poet in 1878, and spent some time in Rome with Henrik Ibsen and Jens Peter Jacobsen. He became a cultural radical, influenced by Charles Darwin, Georg Brandes and Johan Sverdrup. He wrote several plays, some of which were highly provocative and caused scandals in the Norwegian theatre. He was an exponent of Expressionism, and considered the most noteworthy Norwegian playwright after Ibsen. He was also a journalist, working for Dagbladet and Verdens Gang, and a theatre critic. He was the artistic director of the theatre Den Nationale Scene in Bergen from 1884 to 1888, but resigned when the board refused to stage Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's play Kongen. He was married twice, first to actress Didrikke Tollefsen, whom he met in Bergen, and later to Birgit Friis Stoltz Blehr, a sister-in-law of Sigurd Bødtker. He was hostile to Oscar II, the king of the union between Norway and Sweden, and wrote a book criticizing him in 1896. He was also an agitator for the dissolution of the union in 1905. He died of pneumonia in Oslo in 1929, and was buried at Vestre gravlund.